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Technology. Science. Exploration. Knowledge.Mon, 07 May 2018 06:48:30 +0000en-GBhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4Sea Turtle Nesting Beaches Threatened by Microplastic Pollutionhttp://intersekt.io/sea-turtle-nesting-beaches-threatened-by-microplastic-pollution/
Mon, 07 May 2018 06:48:30 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10776(SCIENCE DAILY) – Plastic is famous for its unyielding durability, making it perfect for consumer products but a unique and persistent menace to the natural environment.

For the loggerhead sea turtles that nest on the once-pristine beaches bounding the Gulf of Mexico, millimeters-thick pieces of broken down plastic — called microplastics — pose a particularly urgent threat.

A new study from Florida State University researchers shows that increasing microplastic accumulation along the Gulf’s beaches could alter the composition of shoreline sand and jeopardize the turtles’ sensitive incubation environments.

Their findings were published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.

“With increasing populations, higher demand for resources and more use of plastic, we’re having a lot more plastic and microplastic appearing as marine debris,” said the study’s coauthor Mariana Fuentes, assistant professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science (EOAS). “In these coastal areas, we’re seeing significantly more pollution.”

Sand samples collected throughout the region revealed that microplastics were present at every site. More alarming, the highest concentrations of microplastics were found consistently in the dunes, where sea turtles tend to nest.

Plastic has a tendency to retain large amounts of heat in response to comparably moderate increases in temperature. If enough plastic is present in a sandy environment, the area could experience measurable temperature increases.

This dynamic is of particular concern in sea turtle nests, Fuentes said. For marine turtle eggs, incubation temperature is destiny.

“Sea turtles have temperature dependent sex determination, which means their sex is determined by the sand temperature,” Fuentes said. “Changes in incubation temperatures might modify the sex ratios produced on these nesting beaches, but at this stage we don’t know how much microplastic is needed to see those changes.”

In subsequent research, Beckwith and Fuentes plan to expand upon these findings and investigate the specific ways that microplastic might alter the temperature profile of the sediment on important nesting beaches.

“The first step was to see whether sea turtles are exposed to microplastics,” she said. “Next we’ll explore its potential impacts.”

Earth’s oceans have long been blighted by pollution, and vulnerable species like sea turtles have borne the brunt of decades of irresponsible waste. But Fuentes remains optimistic about the future. She said that shifting attitudes could translate into positive changes in policy and behavior.

“There is a lot of hope,” Fuentes said. “We’re beginning to see more and more initiatives providing incentives to discourage the use of plastics. I see my students making those changes every day. It’s up to everyone.”

]]>People Adapted to the Cold and Got More Migraines as a Resulthttp://intersekt.io/people-adapted-to-the-cold-and-got-more-migraines-as-a-result/
Mon, 07 May 2018 06:40:13 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10773(NEW SCIENTIST) – 3 MAY 2018 – By Jessica Hamzelou –Some people have adapted to live in cold polar climates, but at a price. The same gene variant that helps us cope with cold also seems to increase our risk of migraine.

Aida Andrés at University College London, UK, Felix Key at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and their colleagues studied the gene for a protein called TRPM8, which is known to activate in cold temperatures.

The gene for the protein comes in two flavours. An older variant, which we share with chimpanzees, is common in people living in Africa. But a newer variant is more common in people living in northern countries, particularly in Europe.

The team screened databases of genetic data taken from people across the world, to see how common each gene variant was in Europe, Africa and South East Asia.

“We found a correlation between frequency [of the gene] and latitude,” says Key. For example, the new variant of the gene is found in around 88 per cent of Finnish people, but only 5 per cent of Nigerians.

“It’s really cool,” says Mark Shriver at Penn State University in University Park. “This is probably the first time [the adaptation of] a sensory gene has been tied to environment.”

A right old headache

The TRPM8 gene has also been linked to migraine. The older variant is thought to protect against the disorder, while the newer variant increases the risk. This may help explain why migraine is more commonly reported in northern countries. “We know the prevalence of migraine is lower in African Americans,” says Key.

It’s not clear why sensations of cold might be linked to migraine, although some people do experience cold-triggered headaches. “That ice cream headache you get is the first thing that comes to mind,” says Shriver.

But migraine is complex, and many factors affect a person’s risk of developing it, says Andrés. In a second study, Padhraig Gormley at Massachusetts General Hospital and his colleagues have shown that many common genetic variants shape a person’s risk of developing migraine (Neuron, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2018.04.014).

It’s also not clear why the often-debilitating pain of migraine would be beneficial. The increased migraine risk associated with the gene variant is probably an unfortunate side effect, says Shriver.

The finding is more evidence that humans have evolved and adapted over the last 100,000 years, even though today we are more alike genetically than most species, says Rasmus Nielsen at University of California, Berkeley.

]]>At Least 10 Volcanic Fissures Have Now Opened Up Near Hawaii’s Mt. Kilauea, Destroying 21 Homeshttp://intersekt.io/at-least-10-volcanic-fissures-have-now-opened-up-near-hawaiis-mt-kilauea-destroying-21-homes/
Mon, 07 May 2018 06:23:50 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10769(GIZMODO) – 7 May 2018 – By Tom McKay – The eruption of the Mount Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island has continued to progress, with massive lava flows pouring out of what is now believed to be at least 10 fissures in the nearby residential neighborhood of Leilani Estates, the Washington Post reported.

At least two of the volcanic fissures are believed to have opened as late as Saturday night, the Post wrote, though some of the ones that opened first are no longer contributing to the magma flows.

Kilauea is a shield volcano composed mostly of basalt, which makes for fluid lava that rises from rather than violently erupts from the surrounding rock; the result can be a lot of lava, but massive explosions at the peak are rare and usually result from the introduction of liquid water that flashes into steam. The mountain has been continually erupting for over 30 years, the Post added, though usually its efforts are limited to filling Puu Oo crater with a lava lake. (That lake is now nearly empty after a vent collapse sent the lava instead flowing towards the newly opened fissues.)

“As the eruption progresses, there will become a preferred pathway for the magma to go through,” US Geological Survey (USGS) volcanologist Wendy Stovall told the Post. “Some of the outer vents along this fissure line will start to close up and congeal because the lava is going to essentially harden.”

That unfortunately means that the newer fissures are spraying lava at even higher pressure, Stovall added, with the USGS estimating some were shooting molten rock as high as 230 feet (70 meters) in the air—though it is possible they could eventually shoot as high as 1,000 feet (305 meters). The fissures have been accompanied by hundreds of small earthquakes, with the largest being a 6.9 magnitude quake that rocked the entire Big Island on Friday, the largest there since 1975.

]]>NASA, ULA Launch Mission to Study How Mars Was Madehttp://intersekt.io/nasa-ula-launch-mission-to-study-how-mars-was-made/
Mon, 07 May 2018 06:12:24 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10766(NASA) – 6 May 2018 – NASA’s Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission is on a 300-million-mile trip to Mars to study for the first time what lies deep beneath the surface of the Red Planet. InSight launched at 7:05 a.m. EDT (4:05 am PDT) Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

“The United States continues to lead the way to Mars with this next exciting mission to study the Red Planet’s core and geological processes,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “I want to congratulate all the teams from NASA and our international partners who made this accomplishment possible. As we continue to gain momentum in our work to send astronauts back to the Moon and on to Mars, missions like InSight are going to prove invaluable.”

First reports indicate the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket that carried InSight into space was seen as far south as Carlsbad, California, and as far east as Oracle, Arizona. One person recorded video of the launch from a private aircraft flying along the California coast.

Riding the Centaur second stage of the rocket, the spacecraft reached orbit 13 minutes and 16 seconds after launch. Seventy-nine minutes later, the Centaur ignited a second time, sending InSight on a trajectory towards the Red Planet. InSight separated from the Centaur about 9 minutes later – 93 minutes after launch – and contacted the spacecraft via NASA’s Deep Space Network at 8:41 a.m. EDT (5:41 PDT).

“The Kennedy Space Center and ULA teams gave us a great ride today and started InSight on our six-and-a-half-month journey to Mars,” said Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “We’ve received positive indication the InSight spacecraft is in good health and we are all excited to be going to Mars once again to do groundbreaking science.”

With its successful launch, NASA’s InSight team now is focusing on the six-month voyage. During the cruise phase of the mission, engineers will check out the spacecraft’s subsystems and science instruments, making sure its solar arrays and antenna are oriented properly, tracking its trajectory and performing maneuvers to keep it on course.

InSight is scheduled to land on the Red Planet around 3 p.m. EST Nov. 26, where it will conduct science operations until Nov. 24, 2020, which equates to one year and 40 days on Mars, or nearly two Earth years.

“Scientists have been dreaming about doing seismology on Mars for years. In my case, I had that dream 40 years ago as a graduate student, and now that shared dream has been lofted through the clouds and into reality,” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at JPL.

The InSight lander will probe and collect data on marsquakes, heat flow from the planet’s interior and the way the planet wobbles, to help scientists understand what makes Mars tick and the processes that shaped the four rocky planets of our inner solar system.

“InSight will not only teach us about Mars, it will enhance our understanding of formation of other rocky worlds like Earth and the Moon, and thousands of planets around other stars,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency headquarters in Washington. “InSight connects science and technology with a diverse team of JPL-led international and commercial partners.”

Previous missions to Mars investigated the surface history of the Red Planet by examining features like canyons, volcanoes, rocks and soil, but no one has attempted to investigate the planet’s earliest evolution, which can only be found by looking far below the surface.

“InSight will help us unlock the mysteries of Mars in a new way, by not just studying the surface of the planet, but by looking deep inside to help us learn about the earliest building blocks of the planet,” said JPL Director Michael Watkins.

JPL manages InSight for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The InSight spacecraft, including cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver. NASA’s Launch Services Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for launch service acquisition, integration, analysis, and launch management. United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colorado, is NASA’s launch service provider.

A number of European partners, including France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, with significant contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Göttingen, Germany. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument.

]]>Georgia Could Pass a Vaguely Written ‘Unauthorized Computer Access’ Law This Weekhttp://intersekt.io/georgia-could-pass-a-vaguely-written-unauthorized-computer-access-law-this-week/
Sun, 06 May 2018 14:29:26 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10762(GIZMODO) – Tom Mackay, 4 May 2018 – Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has until Tuesday to decide whether to approve a dubious bill that would make it illegal to access a computer or network “without authority,” Wired reported, in what looks an awful lot like legislators trying to make something they don’t understand a crime.

Here’s the backstory: The state government and its Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp were humiliated last year when it became public knowledge data on 6.7 million voters as well as election officials’ login credentials were stored on an unsecured Kennesaw State University server. (Officials involved conveniently covered their tracks by deleting the evidence.) Legislators have somehow convinced themselves that the problem was not the security vulnerability, but that the state can’t prosecute anyone who stumbled across the publicly accessible data.

Georgia is one of only a handful of states that don’t prohibit unauthorized computer access. But state legislators’ version, SB 315, is incredibly broadly written:

Any person who intentionally accesses a computer or computer network with knowledge that such access is without authority shall be guilty of the crime of unauthorized computer access.

(B) Access to a computer or computer network for a legitimate business activity;

(C) Cybersecurity active defense measures that are designed to prevent or detect unauthorized computer access; or

(D) Persons based upon violations of terms of service or user agreements.

The bill seems predicated on at least two weird assumptions: The first being that stumbling across publicly accessible data is the problem instead of sloppy cybersecurity, and the second being that outlawing it will actually accomplish anything. (Similar provisions in federal law are already the topic of heated criticism and accusations of prosecutorial overreach.) Worse, in addition to potentially making the kind of proactive snooping that’s the core of much security research illegal, that exemption for “cybersecurity active defense measures” is basically a stand your ground law for hacking. Under that provision, hacking anyone you claim hacked you first is legal, potentially causing a race to the bottom.

According to Wired, security researchers are worried that SB315’s passage could have a chilling effect entirely the opposite of its intended goals:

“I don’t think this legislation actually solves a problem,” says Jake Williams, founder of the Georgia-based security firm Rendition Infosec. “Information put in a publicly accessible location can and will be downloaded by unintended parties. Making that illegal brings into question so many other issues, like what is ‘authorized’ use? Is violating terms of service illegal?”

“Georgia codifying this concept in its criminal code is potentially a grave step that has some known and many unknown ramifications,” representatives of Google and Microsoft wrote in a joint letter to Governor Deal in April urging him to veto the legislation. “Network operators should indeed have the right and permission to defend themselves from attack, but … provisions such as this could easily lead to abuse and be deployed for anticompetitive, not protective purposes.”

“The only people who will be caught are those who come forward to warn vulnerable organizations that they have vulnerabilities,” Chris Risley, CEO of Atlanta’s Bastille Networks Internet Security, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If someone comes forward and freely provides a warning of vulnerability, they should be thanked, not charged.”

The best that can be said for this law is that it appears to have been amended from a prior version to clarify that violating the terms of service of a website or service—say, by violating the fine print of your ISP’s contract—doesn’t count as “unauthorized computer access.” Activists were previously concerned that the bill was so broadly written as to make violating any terms of service, anywhere a crime.

Set to be launched from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California on an Atlas V at 1105 UTC (1305 CEST) on Saturday, InSight will bring a lander to Mars to study its interior, with equipment to measure internal heat and detect ‘marsquakes’. InSight’s 485-million km journey to Mars will take about six months, beginning soon after it separates from its launcher in Earth orbit.

Five hours after launch, ESA’s deep space ground station at New Norcia in Western Australia, will pick up the signal from InSight. It will maintain contact as a ‘hot backup’ at the same time as NASA’s own Deep Space Network ground station at Canberra, over on the easterly side of the continent.

Once Canberra loses contact, the 35-m dish antenna at New Norcia will maintain contact with the mission until it vanishes under the horizon. ESA’s second southern-hemisphere deep space ground station at Malargüe in Argentina will pick up the contact two and a half hours after that.

“Our stations at New Norcia and Malargüe will allow NASA to keep in touch with InSight during its critically important ‘launch and early operations’ phase, when the spacecraft systems are first turned on and checked,” explains Daniel Firre, the Agency’s ESA-NASA cross-support service manager.

“NASA requested this support because at this time of year the southern hemisphere has very good visibility of the trajectory to Mars, and by extension the NASA DSN stations at Madrid and Goldstone have poor visibility to no visibility in the early days after launch, which leaves only its remaining DSN station at Canberra.

“This is based on a long-standing cross-support agreement between ESA and NASA, where we provide tracking station support to one another as needed. And by extension, as New Norcia monitors InSight telemetry NASA will be filling in for ESA missions normally served from there, such as ESA’s star-mapping Gaia.”

InSight’s separation from its upper stage and initial determination of its orbital path will be carried out from Goldstone in California. The role of New Norcia and Malargüe will be to monitor the spacecraft as it departs Earth and to receive essential telemetry, allowing the early identification of any possible problems.

Should the mission team based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory require any corrective telecommands to be uplinked to InSight then they would make a request to ESA’s ESOC European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, which is staffed 24 hrs/day and manages all ESA Estrack stations, including New Norcia and Malargüe.

“Our support for InSight extends for the first 30 days after launch, but the period of our ‘critical support’ lasts until 0530 UTC on Sunday,” adds Yves Doat, heading ESA’s Ground Facilities Infrastructure Section.

“During this time we will have local maintenance support in place at New Norcia, to immediately remedy any technical problems that might arise, and a station engineer will also be supporting the team at ESOC.”

“During the critical phase after launch we will be listening out not for one spacecraft but three,” adds Daniel.“InSight itself is accompanied by a pair of CubeSats called MarCOs, which will be monitoring InSight’s own atmospheric entry, descent and landing to return data direct to Earth as they pass by Mars.

“All three spacecraft will be near enough together that we should receive them in the same beam.”

After the first month of interplanetary travel, InSight’s will be easier to track from the northern hemisphere, but New Norcia will go on to play a role in monitoring InSight’s landing on 26 November 2018.

]]>Twin Spacecraft to Weigh in on Earth’s Changing Waterhttp://intersekt.io/twin-spacecraft-to-weigh-in-on-earths-changing-water/
Sun, 06 May 2018 14:04:40 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10752(NASA) – 30 April 2018 – pair of new spacecraft that will observe our planet’s ever-changing water cycle, ice sheets, and crust is in final preparations for a California launch no earlier than Saturday, May 19. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), will take over where the first GRACE mission left off when it completed its 15-year mission in 2017.

GRACE-FO will continue monitoring monthly changes in the distribution of mass within and among Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, land and ice sheets, as well as within the solid Earth itself. These data will provide unique insights into Earth’s changing climate, Earth system processes and even the impacts of some human activities, and will have far-reaching benefits to society, such as improving water resource management.

“Water is critical to every aspect of life on Earth – for health, for agriculture, for maintaining our way of living,” said Michael Watkins, GRACE-FO science lead and director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “You can’t manage it well until you can measure it. GRACE-FO provides a unique way to measure water in many of its phases, allowing us to manage water resources more effectively.”

Like GRACE, GRACE-FO will use an innovative technique to observe something that can’t be seen directly from space. It uses the weight of water to measure its movement – even water hidden far below Earth’s surface. GRACE-FO will do this by very precisely measuring the changes in the shape of Earth’s gravity field caused by the movement of massive amounts of water, ice, and solid Earth.

“When water is underground, it’s impossible to directly observe from space. There’s no picture you can take or radar you can bounce off the surface to measure changes in that deep water,” said Watkins. “But it has mass, and GRACE-FO is almost the only way we have of observing it on large scales. Similarly, tracking changes in the total mass of the polar ice sheets is also very difficult, but GRACE-FO essentially puts a ‘scale’ under them to track their changes over time.”

A Legacy of Discoveries

GRACE-FO will extend the GRACE data record an additional five years and expand its legacy of scientific achievements. GRACE chronicled the ongoing loss of mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and mountain glaciers. That wealth of data shed light on the key processes, short-term variability, and long-term trends that impact sea level rise, helping to improve sea level projections. The estimates of total water storage on land derived from GRACE data, from groundwater changes in deep aquifers to changes in soil moisture and surface water, are giving water managers new tools to measure the impact of droughts and monitor and forecast floods.

GRACE data also have been used to infer changes in deep ocean currents, a driving force in Earth’s climate. Its atmospheric temperature profile data, derived from measurements of how signals from the constellation of GPS satellites were bent as they traveled through the atmosphere and received by antennas on the GRACE satellites, have contributed to U.S. and European weather forecast products. GRACE data have even been used to measure changes within the solid Earth itself, including the response of Earth’s crust to the retreat of glaciers since the last Ice Age, and the impact of large earthquakes.

According to Frank Webb, GRACE-FO project scientist at JPL, the new mission will provide invaluable observations of long-term climate-related mass changes.

“The only way to know for sure whether observed multi-year trends represent long-term changes in mass balance is to extend the length of the observations,” Webb said.

An Orbiting Cat and Mouse

Like its predecessors, the two identical GRACE-FO satellites will function as a single instrument. The satellites orbit Earth about 137 miles (220 kilometers) apart, at an initial altitude of about 305 miles (490 kilometers). Each satellite continually sends microwave signals to the other to accurately measure changes in the distance between them. As they fly over a massive Earth feature, such as a mountain range or underground aquifer, the gravitational pull of that feature tugs on the satellites, changing the distance separating them. By tracking changes in their separation distance with incredible accuracy – to less than the thickness of a human hair – the satellites are able to map these regional gravity changes.

A global positioning system receiver is used to track each spacecraft’s position relative to Earth’s surface, and onboard accelerometers record non-gravitational forces on the spacecraft, such as atmospheric drag and solar radiation. These data are combined to produce monthly maps of the regional changes in global gravity and corresponding near-surface mass variations, which primarily reflect changes in the distribution of water mass in Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, land and ice sheets.

In addition, GRACE-FO will test an experimental Laser Ranging Interferometer, an instrument that could increase the precision of measurements between the two spacecraft, by a factor of 10 or more, for future missions similar to GRACE. The interferometer, developed by a German/American instrument team, will be the first in-space demonstration of laser interferometry between satellites.

“The Laser Ranging Interferometer is an excellent example of a great partnership,” said Frank Flechtner, GFZ’s GRACE-FO project manager. “I’m looking forward to analyzing these innovative inter-satellite ranging data and their impact on gravity field modeling.”

GRACE-FO will be launched into orbit with five Iridium NEXT communications satellites on a commercially procured SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This unique “rideshare” launch will first deploy GRACE-FO, then the Falcon 9 second stage will continue to a higher orbit to deploy the Iridium satellites.

GRACE-FO continues a successful partnership between NASA and Germany’s GFZ, with participation by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). JPL manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Demonstration Proves Nuclear Fission System Can Provide Space Exploration Powerhttp://intersekt.io/demonstration-proves-nuclear-fission-system-can-provide-space-exploration-power/
Sun, 06 May 2018 13:56:55 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10748(NASA) 06 May 2018 – NASA and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have successfully demonstrated a new nuclear reactor power system that could enable long-duration crewed missions to the Moon, Mars and destinations beyond.

NASA announced the results of the demonstration, called the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) experiment,during a news conference Wednesday at its Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The Kilopower experimentwas conducted at the NNSA’s Nevada National Security Site from November 2017 through March.

“Safe, efficient and plentiful energy will be the key to future robotic and human exploration,” said Jim Reuter, NASA’s acting associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) in Washington. “I expect the Kilopower project to be an essential part of lunar and Mars power architectures as they evolve.”

Kilopower is a small, lightweight fission power system capable of providing up to 10 kilowatts of electrical power – enough to run several average households – continuously for at least 10 years. Four Kilopower units would provide enough power to establish an outpost.

According to Marc Gibson, lead Kilopower engineer at Glenn, the pioneering power system is ideal for the Moon, where power generation from sunlight is difficult because lunar nights are equivalent to 14 days on Earth.

“Kilopower gives us the ability to do much higher power missions, and to explore the shadowed craters of the Moon,” said Gibson. “When we start sending astronauts for long stays on the Moon and to other planets, that’s going to require a new class of power that we’ve never needed before.”

The prototype power system uses a solid, cast uranium-235 reactor core, about the size of a paper towel roll. Passive sodium heat pipes transfer reactor heat to high-efficiency Stirling engines, which convert the heat to electricity.

According to David Poston, the chief reactor designer at NNSA’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, the purpose of the recent experiment in Nevada was two-fold: to demonstrate that the system can create electricity with fission power, and to show the system is stable and safe no matter what environment it encounters.

“We threw everything we could at this reactor, in terms of nominal and off-normal operating scenarios and KRUSTY passed with flying colors,” said Poston.

The Kilopower team conducted the experiment in four phases. The first two phases, conducted without power, confirmed that each component of the system behaved as expected. During the third phase, the team increased power to heat the core incrementally before moving on to the final phase. The experiment culminated with a 28-hour, full-power test that simulated a mission, including reactor startup, ramp to full power, steady operation and shutdown.

Throughout the experiment, the team simulated power reduction, failed engines and failed heat pipes, showing that the system could continue to operate and successfully handle multiple failures.

“We put the system through its paces,” said Gibson. “We understand the reactor very well, and this test proved that the system works the way we designed it to work. No matter what environment we expose it to, the reactor performs very well.”

The Kilopower project is developing mission concepts and performing additional risk reduction activities to prepare for a possible future flight demonstration. The project will remain a part of the STMD’s Game Changing Development program with the goal of transitioning to the Technology Demonstration Mission program in Fiscal Year 2020.

Such a demonstration could pave the way for future Kilopower systems that power human outposts on the Moon and Mars, including missions that rely on In-situ Resource Utilizationto produce local propellants and other materials.

The Kilopower project is led by Glenn, in partnership with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama,and NNSA, including its Los Alamos National Laboratory, Nevada National Security Site and Y-12 National Security Complex.

For more information about the Kilopower project, including images and video, visit:

]]>Five New Fossil Forests Found in Antarcticahttp://intersekt.io/five-new-fossil-forests-found-in-antarctica/
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:29:25 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10744(NATIONAL GEORGRAPHIC) by Elaina Zachos – Hundreds of millions of years ago, Antarctica was carpeted with prehistoric greenery. Now, scientists may have uncovered clues about what happened in the “Great Dying,” or Permian extinction.

Today, polar summers pound the continent with 24 unforgiving hours of light for about half the year, before polar winters plunge it into complete darkness for the other half. Regardless of the season, the temperatures are consistently below freezing, making treks to the landmass unthinkable for the faint of heart.

But Antarctica wasn’t always like this. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the continent was smushed together with other modern-day landmasses to form the supercontinent Gondwana. Gondwana was humid and carpeted with a network of hardy plants. As the turbulent climate shifted from hot to cold on a sometimes monthly basis, the streamlined foliage would have needed to withstand extremes.

What caused this die-off, called the Permian extinction or the Great Dying, is still shrouded in mystery. Clues to the massacre come to us in the form of fossilized trees, but much of the reasons behind this extinction remain unsolved. And that’s why a handful of intrepid scientists traveled to Antarctica this winter, curious to uncover clues about what led to the end of the continent’s forested past.

“Our goal this year was to study fossil ecosystems around the time of the late Permian,” says Erik Gulbranson, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor who was one of three team leaders on an expedition to the continent in late 2017. “What we’re able to see in these fossil ecosystems is something we’ve never seen before in Antarctica.”

The team discovered five new fossil forests that would have lived into and beyond the Permian extinction interval. This was the most fossil forests they have found in one season, and it nearly doubles the known fossil forests in Antarctica.

“These new findings tell us how these organisms were reacting or responding to the climatic or environmental changes that were taking place during the extinction crisis,” Gulbranson says. “Having a fossil record of the extinction interval is our only understanding of how life on the planet goes through such an event.”

But beyond the broad outlines, a number of the details are unclear. Some geologists and paleontologists say the Permian extinction occurred over 15 million years, but others say it lasted 20,000 years—a blink of an eye in the scheme of geologic time.

]]>BepiColombo Gets Green Light for Launchhttp://intersekt.io/bepicolombo-gets-green-light-for-launch/
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:19:47 +0000http://intersekt.io/?p=10741(ESA INTERNATIONAL) – Europe’s first mission to Mercury will soon be ready for shipping to the spaceport to begin final preparations for launch.

The mission passed a major review yesterday, meaning that the three BepiColombo spacecraft, along with ground equipment and mission experts, are confirmed to start the move from ESA’s centre in the Netherlands to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at the end of next month. The launch window is open from 5 October until 29 November.

“It’s been a long and occasionally bumpy road to this point, and there is still plenty to do until we are ready for launch,” says Ulrich Reininghaus, ESA’s BepiColombo project manager, “but we are extremely pleased to finally move our preparations to the launch site, and are grateful to everyone who has made this possible.

“In parallel we are continuing with some long-duration firing tests on a replica transfer module thruster, under space-like conditions, to be best prepared for our journey to Mercury.”

Once at Kourou, an intensive six months of essential preparation are needed, including more review checkpoints.

Work includes dressing the spacecraft in protective insulation to prepare for the harsh space environment and extreme temperatures they will experience operating close to the Sun, attaching and testing the solar wings and their deployment mechanisms, installing the sunshield, fuelling, and connecting the three spacecraft together.

The final weeks will see the spacecraft stack inside the Ariane 5 rocket fairing, and preparing the launch vehicle itself, ready to blast the mission on a seven-year journey around the inner Solar System to investigate Mercury’s mysteries.

A transfer module will carry two science orbiters to the innermost planet, using a combination of solar power, electric propulsion and nine gravity-assist flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury to set it on course.

The two orbiters will make complementary measurements of the innermost planet and its environment from different orbits, from its deep interior to its interaction with the solar wind, to provide the best understanding of Mercury to date, and how the innermost planet of a solar system forms and evolves close to its parent star.

BepiColombo is a joint endeavour between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA. ESA is providing the Mercury Transfer Module, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the sunshield and interface structure, and JAXA is providing the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter.